Nilüfer Yanya’s third album, 2024’s My Method Actor, found the London singer-songwriter in an existential quandary. “It’s a weird one making a third album, because it’s like: ‘What is pushing me to do this?’” she told Apple Music at the time of its release. “Where is that desire coming from? Where am I going with this? Where am I going to be on the other side of this?” In writing the LP, she found some of those answers: “It’s a journey, but you don’t really know where it’s going,” she said. “But it’s about not worrying too much about the outcome; it’s learning to trust myself, to really listen to myself.” A few songs were abandoned in the process, which she undertook with her songwriting partner Wilma Archer. But upon returning from touring My Method Actor, Yanya found that some of those ideas deserved revisiting, and they form the Dancing Shoes EP. The title might be a little tongue-in-cheek—these four tracks don’t quite suit the club floor—but it does perhaps suggest a desire to dance the blues away. And like all of Yanya’s prior albums, she finds a springy tension between laidback rockers that mask pain with compelling grooves (“Kneel,” “Cold Heart”) and equally affecting, soul-baring pop ballads (“Where to Look,” “Treason”).